is 



It will be necessary, under Rule 6, that the present Meeting con- 

 firm the appointment of the gentlemen who have been elected to 

 the Council to fill vacancies which have occurred since the last 

 Annual Meeting. The Society's Balance Sheet duly audited by 

 Mr. Rucker, public accountant, up to the end of last year, is also 

 submitted to the meeting. 



Dr. Von Mueller, C.M.G., Vice-President of the Society, moved 

 the adoption of the Report and Balance-sheet, and in doing so 

 said that it was gratifying to him to witness once more the pro- 

 ceedings of the Annual Meeting, more particularly as the last year 

 closed in prosperity, and the new one had commenced hopefully. He 

 considered that a large share of the present prosperity of the Society 

 was due to the care and interest displayed by Mr. Le Souef ; he felt 

 it more his duty to refer to this as he knew from his former experi- 

 ence, as the executive officer of the first Zoological Committee, how 

 much toil and anxiety were involved in such duties. He further 

 wished to observe how large a field of operations there was before 

 the Society ; in enhancing the resources of the country, for instance, 

 he thought that careful researches should be instituted in the mode 

 of development of the sturgeon and herring, with a view of learning 

 whether they could possibly be brought to these colonies. There was 

 a time when the transfer of salmon to the distant south was deemed 

 an impossibility, yet through the patient and thoughtful persever- 

 ance of Mr. Edward Wilson, Mr. Youl, Sir Robert Officer, Mr. All- 

 port, and other promoters of the great salmon enterprise, it had been 

 triumphantly accomplished. And he would here allude to the oppor- 

 tunities afforded by new Antartic Navigation, for observing the 

 transit of Venus, for perhaps locating the herring in the Antartic 

 Sea. Any increase of food in rivers and seas was effected without 

 any cultural exertion, while the yield of such food, irrespective of its 

 ordinary value, gave so much opportunity for fertilising the land 

 without deprivation of any -kind. Even on a small scale, much might 

 be done by merely transferring a basketful of eels to any lagoon or 

 chain of waterholes, which could not be utilised like flowing streams 

 for trout and other superior fish. Already on his suggestion, eels had 

 been taken from Melbourne to the rivers of St. Vincent's Gulf, and 

 the lagoons near King George's Sound. He might here remark 



